


Just One Last Time

by pixiefloat117 (hopefulsilence)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Sexy Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 09:20:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7165316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopefulsilence/pseuds/pixiefloat117
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vax'ildan just wants one more day with his friends, and just one more night with Keyleth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just One Last Time

**Author's Note:**

> I started this about a month ago, before Vax became a Paladin for the Raven Queen. Please keep that in mind. Otherwise, enjoy :)

Nimble fingers caressed his sunken cheeks gingerly. Her form, silhouetted against the evening sky; tall, limber and beautiful. Her face shrouded in persistent shadow as the faint glow of her eyes made a stark contrast against the darkness. Oh, how he desired to reach out. If he could just lift his arm and touch her, that would be enough. His body ached to have hers against his; to feel at one with her. 

She approached when the sky was at it's darkest; all the while dancing to music only she could hear. She carried herself with a sophisticated grace that only she could attain, which made everyone else look lackluster in comparison. Only she, with all her beauty and finesse, could make him feel this way. Her hands made their way over his body, feeling every inch of him and sending tendrils of heat through his body. His hand snaked their way through her auburn hair, making knots and tangles grip his fingers. His sex jumped in anticipation as her light grazes moved from his waist to his inner thigh. 

Her lips, chapped and rough, pressed against his hard, bruising his and tasting copper. Something wasn't right about her; about this whole situation, but he refused to accept that fact. He wanted to let his desires take over, just this once. Her ageless figure leaned upward to reveal a mantle of dark feathers. Fear gripped his heart like ice as panic washed over him. His chest turned to stone as he glanced into the dark abyss of the Raven Queen's eyes. A sly grin materialized on her delicate face which made her appear more menacing than she probably really looked. A haunting chortle filled his ears and he reached to cover them, to hide from her grasp.

Vax’ildan woke with a start, throwing his body upright as his torment ended abruptly. 

\----------

Breakfast felt like a meaningless chore to him. He wasn’t hungry; and hadn’t been since his sister, Vex’ahlia, had died and been brought back Kash, and for that he would be forever in the other man’s debt; but trivial things, such as eating, didn’t seem to interest him anymore. It wasn’t the fact that he wasn’t hungry, it was the fact that he hadn’t _felt_ hungry since then. It just seemed like a concept that wasn’t needed to him any longer.

“Vax?” a voice rang out in his thoughts. Only moving his eyes upward, he saw Keyleth standing not too far from him. He raised his gaze finally to meet hers and put on a mask of indifference before replying.

“What?” he replied, a bit more harshly than he intended. Her gaze shot from concern to hurt and he quickly stumbled over his words to apologize. “I’m sorry Kiki,” he finally managed to spit out. There was a pregnant pause before either of them spoke again.

“Are you alright? Truly?” she questioned, love and concern coloring her voice as she spoke.

His face melted from his stoic expression to something that resembled compassion. He had been so caught up in his own thoughts for so long that he’d neglected everyone else. He didn’t want Vex to leave his side and when she did, she died. He cared for Keyleth so much, maybe too much, and it was eating away at him. He wanted so badly to take her into his arms and just protect her from the world. But he kept pushing her, and everyone for that matter, away.

“Not really.” he murmured before standing quickly and exiting the Keep.

\----------

The general hustle and bustle of Emon soothed him rather quickly. His nighttime visitor was slowly turning into an undesirable room-mate which made things horrible for him in the real world. He felt tired; more tired than he could ever remember feeling. Despite the initial mugginess that made the town feel like a sauna, goosebumps infested his forearms. He watched.

A group of children meandered by kicking a ball. A woman sold cheese. An older man was swiftly kicked out of the nearby pub for reasons unknown to Vax and he started yelling curses to the bartender. 

Vax sighed. Annoyed. He didn’t belong here anymore. Not since _Her_. He belonged to Her now. Everything else just taunted him, like a child being teased with sweets. He would be right there and it would be snatched away quickly as he is left in the darkness. He growled under his breath. He couldn’t stand all this… _happiness_. He turned on his heels and left the town.

\----------

The lake was peaceful. No kids, no lady selling cheese, no drunken bar hopper; just silence. Small waves licked the sandy shore, drawing him to the water's edge. He kicked off his leather boots, stripped himself nude and wade into it’s dark crispness to his waist. It was cold; colder than he anticipated. He didn’t care. As a matter of fact, he didn’t care about anything.

The birds stopped chirping, leaving him in an unnerving silence. He turned to face the shore only to be welcomed with darkness. He felt panic grip his chest as he tried to make it way back to the green grasses only to be greeted by more darkness and shadows. 

“Vax’ildan...” The haunting voice filled his ears once again. Long and blanched arms snaked their way around his torso, stopping his breath from leaving his lungs. “You know you belong to me now,” it sang. He managed to release the breath that was being held and give a low guttural growl.

“If you’re not going to tell me what you want from me, then leave,” he pleaded. He hated to beg, oh how he hated it. It made him feel weak, like when he was a child and something bad had happened to Vex. He felt small.

“Now why would I tell you when I can keep you with me by a thread?” the voice asked with a small chuckle. 

The figure behind him moved to his front and caressed his face while sending tendrils of fire where her fingertips touched. He winced. He wanted to slink away from her gaze; to hide like a child being scorned for their wrongdoings. His skin _crawled_ making it feel like million of insects had begun dancing on his skin. 

“All in due time, my dear.” the voice sang. “All in due time, Vax’ildan.”

_Vax’ildan._

_Vax._

“Vax!” a voice rang out in his personal darkness. He jumped at the sound making the water around him splash up his torso. 

There Keyleth stood, in all her glorious beauty, on the shore. Her face was scrunched with concern and worry. The sun had sunk into the horizon leaving the sky filled with various shades of blue and pink. Stars were starting to make themselves known in the darkening sky and the moon, full as he thought, had finally shown. How long had he been gone?

Keyleth moved to pick up his discarded clothing as he slowly approached. Even though she fought to keep her eyes level with his, it didn’t stop the crimson from rising on her face. He looked into her face, thoughtful. She quietly passed him the lump of clothing and turned her back.

“Kiki…” his voice trailed, pained. 

She knew. She knew everything. She knew that he’d given himself to the Queen; whoever she really was. She shook her head before finally speaking.

“You were always foolish when it comes to your sister.” she calmly said. Did her voice shake? Just how upset had he made her? He could tell without seeing her face that she had been hiding her true feelings on the whole selling his soul thing. She was scared. 

He gently placed his hand around her arm and turned her to face him. Her golden eyes were closed making it almost impossible to read her. He could just make out the fact that around her eyes were slightly redder than the rest of her face. She’d been crying. Over him. He cursed to himself, letting the anger that he had toward himself show slightly before turning back to her.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t afford to lose her too.” he replied, the pain in his voice growing ever more present. 

“I understand that.” she started. Seconds passed before she spoke again, this time letting the tears fall. “You’re so stupid. You blurt it out back at the Briarwoods and now you’re trying to act like nothing has changed. I’m not as naive as the others think and I have feelings too.”

“Ki--”

“No, Vax. We just want you to come home.” Her voice fell flat as she pushed his clothes into him. Stunned by her words, he just nodded. 

Keyleth turned on her heels and marched away from him quickly. His heart shattered as his he sunk to the ground. Not caring who happened to pass by, he leaned forward and let out a cry as he clenched his fists and drove them into the ground. Minutes passed as he yelled silently, letting the built up anger and frustrations out on the innocent dirt below him. It wasn’t the ground’s fault, he knew, but he had to do something and just ignoring it more would only leave things worse.

He finally dressed himself but didn’t return to the Keep. He thought about a lot of things that night. About how he made the decision, and why. About how he couldn’t protect his sister in time because he just had to go see where the Beholder came from. How he blamed himself because he was too curious, but furious at Vex because she couldn’t let go of her greed long enough to examine the tomb more carefully. How Percy was the one that really did jump the gun on the ordeal and set everything into motion that made the trap go off in the first place.

Finally, when it seemed like the night couldn’t get any darker, he slowly made his way back to the Keep. If he had to face his friends, he wanted it sooner rather than later.

\----------

The sun was high in the sky before Vax even attempted to leave his bed quarters. He didn’t want to eat, he didn’t want to put up with the merriment from Scanlan, or anyone for that matter, and he didn’t want to see Keyleth. He knew that he would just hurt her again if they saw one another. At the same time however, he wanted to barge into her bed quarters and show her everything that he really was; but he couldn’t, wouldn’t even. He’d convinced himself that she didn’t want anything to do with him, so he did what he just did best, stuck to the shadows and pretended that he wasn’t there unless someone asked about or for him.

It was the same day in and out. He would leave his quarters only when he really needed to, which was only really to be with his sister and to put on some semblance of normality. At least once a day, someone would ask him if he was alright and he would always reply with the same colorlessness version of ‘I’m fine’.

For the most part, everyone gave him the space that he needed. There were quite a few occasions where someone would leave a dish of food for him outside his door but it would disappear before morning arrived. 

\----------

Over three months had passed before his dreams finally got the best of him. He used to think himself a strong man, but now he felt smaller than a child. The Queen had whittled away at his sanity; at his very being. She was calling him to be with her. It was time. The grasp that she had on him was too strong for him to break and there wasn’t anyone that would be willing to take his place (not that he would allow it anyway). He just needed one more night.

He slunk away to the gardens late at night knowing that no one would be there. He quickly grasped the most beautiful flower that he could find, a pale pink chrysanthemum, and plucked it. Disquieted that he couldn’t get the root with it so that it could be replanted, he made his way back into the empty, and dark corridors of the Keep.

Keyleth’s room was the easiest to find. She always seemed to have a candle lit at the gods awful times; like now. He stopped questioning why she would be awake at this time for she always answered with silence. He rasped on the door lightly and a few seconds later, it opened just slightly ajar to where he could see only half of the copper-haired woman's features. Once she realized who it was, she opened the door further to where he could see all of her.

Shadows danced across her delicate face as the unfelt breeze manipulated the flames of the three or so candles she had lit. The glow from a small fire that she had started aid more for each of them to see, but it was a fire that had no heat; purely decorational it seemed. Even though she was clad in just her sleeping pullover and shorts, he thought seeing her at a time like this was when she was most beautiful. She wasn’t dressed in her armor or on guard for anything. This was a time when she could really be herself without having to worry about how long it would be before they were attacked again. 

“Can I come in, Keyleth?” he whispered and even with that, his voice seemed to bounce off wall to wall. 

“If you want.” the younger half-elf replied as she opened the door farther for him. He placed one foot in front of the other and made his way inside.

Taking a few steps inside to her desk, he held out the flower that he had carefully chosen for her. “I wanted you to have this.” he explained feeling foolish. He couldn’t help but feel nervous about being with her like this, when she was so, open to the elements.

A smile creeped onto her lips. “Oh Vax, you shouldn’t have.” she replied in a tone that would suggest that she liked the sentiment, but she thought that he was being silly at the same time. She quickly strolled to the window sill to put the flower in the small vase that already contained about three more flowers. “There. Now it can be with it’s friends.” her voice sang as she ran her fingers over the petals ever so lightly. She turned to face the other half-elf with a smile.

Vax took two quick steps toward her and planted his lips against hers, one hand slowly wrapping around her waist and bringing her closer to him, the other caressing her cheek. An audible gasp escaped her soft lips before she returned the affection as her arms wrapped around his neck in an attempt to bring him closer. 

Before either of them could think about any repercussions of their actions, Vax had gently placed her on the small bed nearby and snaked his way through the blankets all the while still kissing her softly. His hands slowly made their way under clothing fabric and to his surprise, she didn’t block his advancements. 

Her delicate breasts felt silky compared to his calloused hands which only made him more afraid to break her. Hardy hands seeked erect nipples as he fingered for them and after a few moments, he found his purchase. A soft moan was freed from her small lips. The next thing he knew, Keyleth was carefully pushing him away only to remove her shirt to make things easier for him and laying back down with a mischievous smile. 

Keyleth felt her hips buckle against him as his free hand found her open folds. She did everything she could to stop herself from being too loud, but she feared that Pike, her room neighbor, had heard and she turned crimson just thinking about how she would approach the Gnome in the morning. She quickly dismissed the thought as Vax massaged over her once more which only brought out another moan.

Vax brought his hands back up to the waistband of her shorts and slowly pulled them downward and she did the best the could to make it happen quicker. Keyleth grasped at his shirt and pulled it off eagerly and quickly moved to his pants and pushed them off as well. 

There was a pause before either of them moved as they just admired each other. Keyleth was tiny but her edges were all rounded, making her the perfect size for him; and her skin silky and creamy, like milk in his morning coffee. On the other hand, Vax was hard. His skin bore many scars, some looked like fire while others had faded back to his normal skin tone. She gingerly traced a fierce looking scar on his chest. She wanted to wrap him into her arms and just heal him; restore his body to how it was, before everything that had happened to him. She leaned in and kissed him lightly as he softly sunk into her body, making her fall back down onto her bed. With a slow movement, Vax had embedded his sex into her eagerly awaiting folds. 

Little moans and gasps escaped her tender lips as he rocked in and out of her. He leaned into her and wrapped his arms around her the best he could while she dug her nails into his back. In any other situation, the scratching would sting, but this made him feel different. It made him want to rock harder. Time stood still as he felt her tighten and relax under him. 

“I love you Kiki…” he moaned, his voice barely coming out as a whisper.

“I love you too…” she replied lightly.

Eventually, Vax felt like he was about to burst as well as Keyleth. They rocked in unison, gaining speed and getting harder and harder until they both climaxed. He fell into her, breathing hard and tired, but happy none the less. It was the first time in a while that he could remember being truly happy. He didn’t want this night to end. He finally peeled himself away from her only to lay by her side with his back against the chilled wall. She nuzzled herself against him and he wrapped his arms around her, not quite used to being the big spoon. 

Before either of them knew it, they were both asleep, safe, happy and loved; but when Keyleth woke from her restful slumber the next morning, Vax was nowhere to be found. She found a single raven feather on her window sill next to her flowers and she allowed the tears to fall. She knew he wasn’t coming back.


End file.
